


let me go so that i may keep you

by aeyria



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Holy Fire, Hopeful Ending, I Don't Even Know, I think?, I'm Sorry, No beta we fall like Crowley, Pre-Canon, See Notes for more details, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, look no one's having a good time here, mcd is for discorporation but he doesnt come back in the fic, tagging to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23691643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeyria/pseuds/aeyria
Summary: "You'll have to do it eventually. It's not fair to either of us if you don't."Aziraphale has made a mistake and Crowley asks him to do the unthinkable. Even if it's temporary, how can you kill something you love?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	let me go so that i may keep you

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I don't know why I wrote this except it clawed its way out of my brain and now it's here... Usually this isn't my thing at all, I think I was just going through a mental health episode. Anyway, uh, yeah, not a really happy fic honestly. Might be a bit out of character, may be making up some rules; the opening conversation came to me first and then everything filled in after and tbh I just wanted to be done with this. I'll put more details down in the end notes for trigger warnings and explanations. Tagging and rating are more precautionary, but do let me know if I missed something.

“I just, I don’t know if I could ever forgive myself for hurting you,” he says, wringing his hands as though he’s afraid of what they’ll do if he stops. “How I could…” He tries to wave at the broken body before him, tries to pretend it’s an explanation and not the plea he’s silently asking. He can hardly even _look_. 

“You’ll have to do it eventually.” He tries not to be sick. There’s so much blood, so much sickness. Why can’t he stop it? He keeps trying to stem it, but it keeps seeping through the bandages, staining the white cloth in scarlet pools edged with green and yellow. “It’s not fair to either of us if you don’t.”

No, it isn’t. He forces himself to look at the damage before him, the damage that he caused, that he never meant to inflict. _Not to him._

Crowley lies on the bed before him, pale and weak. Still bleeding from the gash across his stomach, still burning with a fever of holy fire. It’s been days. The infection isn’t just earthly. 

_“Aziraphale,” he’d gasped then. Not ‘no’, not ‘wait’, not any sort of sound of pain or panic; just the angel’s name, one word whispered in a soft, almost sigh. His golden eyes had looked up in surprise, confusion written across his face as he tried to understand what had happened. And then the screaming had started. Aziraphale wasn’t even sure Crowley was aware of it. The demon had crumpled as soon as the pain had set in, folded over the sword that had been thrust through his stomach and into the flames that leaped around it. That now licked at his hands, where he clutched the wound. Why was he there? This wasn’t the plan, he wasn’t supposed to be here, it was supposed to be someone else—_

Aziraphale had torn the sword away as soon as he’d realized - too late, he remembered, you’re not supposed to remove puncture tools until you were ready to deal with what they kept in. But the flames were so hungry, and the demon was dry kindling… He’s still not sure it was the right thing to do. Removing the sword had taken Crowley off the pyre, but holy fire still crackled at the edges of the wound, and blood now poured from its now widened center. There was only so much he could do.

The next four nights were spent keeping vigil at Crowley’s side. Four nights he’d watched over him, helpless to ease the demon’s restless writhing as fever took him. The holy fire had stopped its crawl across his skin after the first night, but in exchange for flesh it had settled for blood, settled into his veins and set to burning him from the inside like a tree consumed through its core by the sparks incited by a lightning strike. He can only be grateful that the damage is a burn and not a boil; he doesn’t think Crowley would have survived the instant vaporization.

Then again, he won’t survive this slow burn much longer either.

Crowley’s lucidity had returned on the fifth day. He’d gasped awake from a night terror like a drowning man clawing at the water’s surface and somehow, still, his first word was, “Aziraphale?” It wasn’t the innocent puzzle it had been before, but it wasn’t accusatory either. It was scared and searching, and Aziraphale had to wonder if this wasn’t somehow worse. Because he had to know, hadn’t he? He couldn’t possibly still sound so worried if he knew.

And yet.

“You’re… keeping me alive?”

“Crowley!” He’d rushed forward in relief, falling to his knees at the bedside in a way that was dangerously close to reverent, but he didn’t care. Crowley had looked at him with something bordering on horror. His voice was a rasp, dry and raw after he’d screamed himself silent during the third night.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” he’d whispered. Aziraphale had frozen then, horror of his own creeping in now at the line of questioning. 

“I, I thought we were past that, dear boy. It was an accident, I never meant to attack you, oh I’m so sorry for—"

“Angel, you have to. Please.” Time stopped.

“What?” He couldn’t be asking… “No. No, I’ll fix this, I can—"

“You’re letting it feed off of yourself.” There was the accusation. He’d hoped he hadn’t noticed that little trick. “Please.”

“No, Crowley! I can’t. No!” Please don’t ask this of me. Don’t ask me to let you go. 

And he hadn’t. Crowley had dropped the subject, and Aziraphale had gone back to his tending. The blood kept pooling. His strength kept waning.

Eventually he had to admit that Crowley wasn’t healing.

“I’m not going to angel,” Crowley had said softly. He’d cried then, at the unfairness of it all. “Not like this.” 

And it was true. He knew it was true; he had the damned evidence right in front of him. He’d tried so hard to salvage things, had wrapped his own essence around the charred edges of Crowley’s and prayed that the heat would meld his offering into the pieces he’d broken and save them from destruction. He could burn, just spare this demon. 

But no matter what he did, the fire refused to die. 

Eventually, he was going to have to confront what Crowley was asking. And so he puts on a brave face, and forces himself to face it.

“I’ve caused you so much pain already,” he says now, brushing a stray strand of hair out Crowley’s sweat shining face. He’s so warm and in so much pain. “You don’t deserve this.”

“I’ll go fast. Not hanging on by much now.” They both know the only thing keeping him there is Aziraphale. Stubborn, selfish Aziraphale.

“It will hurt,” he frets. 

“And it will _end_ , Aziraphale.” He’s drawn it out for so long. “Please.”

It’s not fair to keep him like this. He knows it’s not fair, and it’s not doing anything aside from delaying the inevitable. It’s just…

“What if you don’t come back?” He can’t keep the tremble out of his voice. His hands shake in a mirrored fear and he has to trap them against his body to hide the tell-tale tremors.

“Well, that’d be one less demon for you to worry about then, wouldn’t it?” He can’t help it, his hands fly from their places in shock. Why does it feel like a hole is burning through his form as well?

“Crowley! You know I…” You know I don’t think of you like that, as just another demon to be rid of. Oh, I should, but I don’t. I care too much. I care so much. 

Crowley relents. He wonders how much of what he can’t say is spelled out on his face.

“I’ll be back angel. I promise. But you need to let me go, first.” Because if he doesn’t soon, there won’t be anything left for him to let go of.

He takes a breath. Takes another for good measure.

“All right.” Crowley sags in relief, and Aziraphale flinches at the surge of guilt. No, no, time for that later. Right now, he has to get this done. This...

There’s pitifully little he can do to ease the process. He gives Crowley a strip of leather to bite down on and as many numbing agents as he dares and prays that they’ll do something even as he knows that nothing on Earth will stop the pain of a soul being rent asunder. His own essence fights it; he reaches into the ether and tries to coax the given parts of him back into his being, but they won’t, not without a fight. He was a guardian once; he can’t let himself fail it a second time.

That’s the irony, isn’t it? That he’s so hellbent on saving something, on saving this one blessed demon, that he’s killing him to do so. He prays for forgiveness and _pulls_.

Crowley’s scream feels like a damnation. 

Aziraphale’s essence has woven itself into the demon like a tree taken root, roots that have crammed themselves into the crevices and are now clinging to their surroundings for all their worth in a desperate bid to hold Crowley’s soul to his dying body. He doesn’t want to hurt Crowley, but he knows he has to. He has to keep pulling and pulling, even though each poisonous piece comes up with slick with ichor from the bits of Crowley he’s torn out with him.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs, and he wonders if he will ever be able to say any other words. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.” It’s only a small solace that every tear sears his his own soul as well. 

He can’t stop now that he’s started; he’ll never be able to begin again if takes his hands away, and the removal of his essence leaves where he was raw and vulnerable to the ever-creeping fire. It laps like hungry waves, long released from the rein of his sword, and all he can do is keep pulling and pray he works fast enough. Please, please let me be enough.

There is a pop when Crowley’s soul is freed from its fetters. He feels it as much as hears it, the sharp drop of atmospheric pressure right before a lightning strike, and when he looks down, the demon’s eyes have rolled in his head, breath turned rapid and shallow. He’s not sure how much Crowley’s aware of right now. He hopes it’s not much. He hopes he can pass in peace.

Aziraphale moves before his nerves can take him. He leans over and carefully takes Crowley’s head into his hands. It’s strange, he thinks, how gently he wants to hold him when he knows what’s coming next. One hand framing each temple, fingers cupping the ear, palms cradling the curve of his cheek. He presses a feather light kiss to the demon’s forehead.

“Rest now, dear boy,” he murmurs, and then with a quick snap, it’s all over. He was a soldier first, but he has always been a protector foremost. The final breath slips out in a quiet sigh as the body in his arms slumps against him. Like a puppet with its strings cut, suddenly all odd angles and loose weight. Everything stills, and for the first time since he got there, the room and world outside are silent. The world feels empty. He weeps.

He’ll bury the body later. Find a nice secluded spot out beneath the stars Crowley loved so much and return his form to the earth. It will be quiet, and he will sit beside the grave, and maybe then he’ll be able to say all the things he’s been holding in. He’s not ready to say them out loud, not yet. But maybe one day. 

For now, he lets himself mourn. He mourns for all that he had to do, all he couldn’t do, all he lost. He tries to move on. Eventually, he will. But until then, he waits. 

He knows he will wait for a long time. He will watch the humans pass their fleeting lives against the fleeting backdrops of an ever-changing world and he will learn from what they create. He will blame himself. He will change. He will heal. He will follow civilizations through their rises and falls and watch their growing crowds stream through the growing ages. Until one day, when he finally spots a familiar shock of red and black slithering again amidst it all. One day, when the grave is gone and the form he looks for is whole and safe again. One day, they will talk again, and they will be alive, and everything will be okay. 

It will be a very distant day, he knows, but one day, it will happen.

His demon will saunter back into his life, and on that day, Aziraphale will finally let himself be forgiven.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: Essentially, Aziraphale mistakenly attacks Crowley with his flaming sword, and because of a misguided attempt to save him, ends up binding Crowley's soul to his body while the holy fire slowly destroys him. Crowley asks Aziraphale to kill / discorporate him (which is why the suicidal thoughts tag is there, though its all Aziraphale POV), and eventually, Aziraphale does. It's clear that it's just discorporation (temporary character death), but Aziraphale has to do some ripping apart of souls and kill Crowley's physical body, and Crowley doesn't get recorporated in the fic so... MCD warning. 
> 
> I imagine this takes place some time in in the BC's when direct heavenly/hellish interference was more common, but honestly that's about all I've got for setting.
> 
> The logic I'm using wrt the fire is that holy fire isn't instantly deadly like holy water, and the soul and the body are two different layers of a being; the fire burns on the outer body layer, but is feeding on the, let's say oil, / essence that's soaking through from the inner soul layer. Aziraphale binds the two together to keep Crowley from dying, but in doing so is also preventing his soul (the fuel source) from leaving from the burning body, and so the holy fire just keeps burning. Once they're separated, Crowley can remove his soul and is free to go heal (over a very long time) in the ether; the physical death is just to make sure the soul is completely removed and as soon as possible so as to minimize any further damage.


End file.
